Thursday, August 30, 2007

I played the skate demo last night. I liked it a lot. It's a great change from the Tony Hawk series. I personally have never liked any of the Tony Hawk games. The best part of the demo is the ability to record movies and edit them. Once edited, you can even upload them to the EA site. This is where the problems begin.

When I was playing NFS Carbon, you could take pictures at any time and upload them to EA. You could view them, but only once you logged in to EA.com. There's no such thing as being able to look them up by your gamertag, and don't dare think about sharing them with your friends by sending them a link. I could actually save the pics, which was cool, but why all the hoops to jump through?

This brings me back to the skate demo. I uploaded a cool video to EA's servers, and then rushed to the computer to watch my video. Apparently my old "classic" EA login was no longer working, and I need to create a new ID. I created it, then was told I had to link it to my gamertag. Surprisingly, that was unsuccessful. In the end, I gave up out of frustration.

We're on the cusp of something really cool with the ability to capture our gameplay footage and upload it to the web. When Halo 3 drops, the floodgates will open. The only problem is, you will have to have a capture card to get the videos onto the internet. Is there a problem with giving us the freedom of uploading a video, then posting it wherever we want, ala' YouTube?

I have this same issue with the pictures you take with your Vision camera on Xbox Live. You can't view them on Xbox.com, you can't save them to your hard drive, you can't do anything with them. You can send a pic to a friend and create your own gamerpic. Neither of these can be saved for future use. Why is that? It just doesn't make sense.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

I had the idea to start a podcast called Stuff Is Stupid and just talk about things that are stupid. There's so much stuff that is stupid, I would never run out of content. I could literally spend the first several episodes on Nickelback's music, people at Wal-Mart, and my co-workers.

In a related story, I had a Skype chat with the wife of a former friend last night. Apparently she takes offense to me calling him a bitch. It's unfortunate that she feels that way, but I guess she shouldn't have married a bitch. That really should have been the first thing she checked. Flip him over, see if he has balls, then go about your business.

In all honesty, I'm not a difficult person to get a hold of. I have a myriad of contact info here on my blog, not to mention on XBL. I almost decided to post the entire conversation, but thought better of it.

I really don't know why people fuck with me, but if you fuck me around, I'm not going to take it lying down. That's the moral of this story.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Ok, so I got my Zune on Saturday. I immediately plugged it in to let it charge and got this picture on the screen. I assumed the battery was charging and let it sit there for a couple hours. When I finally sat down to install the software, the Zune wasn't detected. I tried 3 usb ports on my pc and one on my work laptop to no avail. I left it plugged in overnight and still the same icon was on the screen.

I broke down and called Zune support and they had me plug it into a usb port in the back of my pc, stating that the ones on the front sometimes have a sleep mode. I did this and waited an hour (and killed the time fragging in the COD4 mp beta). Nothing changed, so I actually plugged it into my 360 to see if that would help. Nothing.

I called Zune support back and was told to unplug it and let the battery completely die. It's been about 8 hours since I did that and the screen still shows the battery icon. I'm hoping that it will finally die tomorrow. Otherwise, I will have to send it in and have it fixed or replaced. The timeframe on a replacement will probably be 3 weeks or more. Awesome!

Friday, August 24, 2007

It was just announced that there is a new picture pack on XBL filled with pics from community sites and podcasts. This is great news for all the hard working guys at Podtacular and even Gamertag Radio. Apparently it's all the shows in the Gamercast Network, which is awfully convenient. I find it interesting that shows like XBL Radio, 360Style or GamerAndy didn't make it in. The Gamerscore Blog guys could have given their slot to somebody else who's actually in the community. Of course, I'm thrilled that Podtacular now have their own gamerpic. Foo Mo Jive and JVB really deserve that. Of course, there are others that aren't as deserving, but whatever. And yes, I'm talking about the bitches over at Uncle Gamer.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Thanks to a twitter friend of mine, I got the code to download the Call of Duty 4 multiplayer beta tonight. I've been playing it and it is completely awesome! You can level up and earn new things like weapons and "perks". Personally, I have my guy outfitted with an assault rifle, smoke grenade, better aim, and a RPG launcher. There's other stuff, but that's the stuff I care about. Hehe. The beta is opening to everyone else on Monday, the 27th, so I'll have all weekend to hone my skills before the noobs arrive.

Friday, August 17, 2007

I reserved Stranglehold at my local Gamestop yesterday. I got a faceplate skin for reserving it, not to mention a CD of "Players Traks". It features Lil John & the East Side Boyz, Ying Yang Twins, and Pitbull among others. Anyway, I took some pictures of the skin so people can see what they're getting if they reserve the game. It's like a skin you get from decalgirl.com. Decent quality, although kind of a pain to put on straight.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Either I'm just bored with the web or the internet has gotten boring here lately. Maybe I just need a few new sites to visit, but I don't think that's it. I'm bored with the forums and blogs. Facebook does nothing for me. Pownce sucks. Purrrnce is dull. MySpace is ok. The various forums I visit are just the same thing over and over. Twitter is the only thing that keeps me interested.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

I downloaded and started to play the Bioshock demo last night. It froze about 10 minutes in, so I quit. I'm not sure I really give a shit about this game. It looks great, but I'm not convinced it's a must play yet. I would much rather play Stranglehold.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

We saw The Bourne Ultimatum last night. It was excellent. One of the few trilogies where all three movies are equal in their quality and actually maintain a cohesive story throughout. Most sequels and three-quels are merely cash grabs with no real motivation other than to make the character jump through some hoops for sake of jumping.

What I did notice during the movie is how similar the origins of Wolverine and Jason Bourne are. Obviously Jason is not a mutant with claws, but if you replace Treadstone with Weapon X some real parallels start to emerge.

Wolverine was already a successful operative with the CIA when he was brought into the Weapon X program. In the movies it's revealed that Wolverine actually volunteered for the program. **Spoiler Alert** We find out at the end of Ultimatum that Jason (or David) actually volunteered for the Treadstone program. Each becomes the best at what they do (and what they do is not nice).

Friday, August 10, 2007

I played the demo for Stranglehold last night and I have to admit that it's awesome! I love that you can dive in any direction, never reload, and generally be a total bad ass just like Chow Yun-Fat. I've got this one at the top of my Gamefly queue, but that doesn't really mean anything. I might have to drop the cash on this one when it comes out.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Can't believe it's been 6 days since my last post. I think twitter is taking up a lot of my blogging that used to go here.

Anyway, I downloaded the new Korn and (hed)p.e. albums this last weekend. I like them both quite a bit. Korn just never lets me down, and (hed)p.e. just has a sound you don't hear anymore. I heart them both!

Thursday, August 02, 2007

We watched Dateline's latest inflammatory episode last night. It featured Chris "To Catch A Predator" Hansen on the trail of stolen iPods. Now, as we all know, this is an epidemic of biblical proportions that only a man like Mr. Hansen can take on. I mean, who hasn't had an iPod stolen or knows someone that has had one stolen? It's a problem that will likely cripple modern day society if not nipped in the bud. Honestly, Chris Hansen might be the new Jesus. His holy crusade is to make sure that every one that purchases an iPod can keep listening to the latest Akon track without interruption. Otherwise, I think the terrorists win.

Seriously, is this issue on par with catching people with the intent to have sex with kids? Apparently it is. Why else would he waste his time on something like this. An iPod costs $300 to $400 bucks (at least, those are the ones that Dateline was using). Is this equivalent to the innocence of a child? I'm going to say maybe just because I really like my iPod. Plus, you can always reformat an iPod. :-p

The main problem with the whole story was how they planted bags with brand new iPods on benches in malls, on the street, and in cars. First, if you find an abandoned bag on a bench in a mall, you're not stealing. You're finding. Yes, you're supposed to turn it in to security, but who among us would do that? A very select few, I guarantee.

Once the "stolen" iPod was connected to the new owner's computer and the "iTunes" software was installed, they could track it. This is because they replaced the disc that came with the iPod with one that they created. It looked the same, but had specialized software that allowed the iPod to be tracked. They had to do this because Apple would not assist them in making criminals out of regular people. Way to go, Apple!

So, the whole show was based on the THEORY that you could track down a stolen iPod. There was no actual real world evidence that it is possible. Just a theory created by Chris Hansen and "proven" by the fact that he could find the ones he planted. That's fucking amazing, Chris.

How about he put some of that energy into finding things like who killed Kennedy or proof of the afterlife. Of course, he's got bigger things to worry about. Somewhere in the country there's a pen being stolen off of a bank teller's counter. Sic 'em, Chris!

About Me

I am married to the most wonderful woman ever and I love her dearly. We have a son who passed away on December 5th, 2005. He was six weeks old. We also have a handsome baby boy born in 2009 that keeps us very busy. I have an awesome sister who co-hosts The Uncanny Gamers podcast with me. We also have three little dogs named Buffy, Buttercup, and Baylee that we love a lot.